Alistair Darling: If I might deal with the first part of my hon. Friend's question, praise for the Government is always welcomed and much appreciated. In relation to the second part, while people are sometimes understandably sceptical about the value of committees, especially those set up between Governments, the Indian one has actually been extremely productive. When I was in India in January, we made progress in four areas: Lloyd's of London will now be able to write reinsurance business in India; the Indian Government are now prepared to consider legislation that would allow Britain's big accountancy firms to set up and practice there; the Bar Association of India is now engaged in a way that will, I hope, lead to British law firms being able to practise in India; and Premier Oil has been given permission to begin production in the Ratna field. Such examples of engagement by the Government have made a difference.
	In the medium and long term, the prospects for good trading relationships between India and Britain are exceptionally good, because both countries have the same outlook. The more that we foster that relationship and encourage investment into India, as well as Indian investment into this country, the better it will be for both our countries.

Alistair Darling: Ministers have held numerous discussions with other parties and colleagues over the course of the energy review since it was launched in 2005. As I have set out in a written statement today, following last week's court judgment it is now likely that the White Paper on energy and the new consultation on nuclear energy will be published in early May. If we can do it earlier than that, we will, but that timescale will enable the Government to make a decision on nuclear and on other issues arising from the White Paper in the autumn.

Alistair Darling: It is important that there is a full and proper consultation. I used to be deeply sceptical about nuclear power. I changed my mind because the facts changed in two respects. First, the science on climate change is now very clear. Unless we get ourselves into a position where we can produce more electricity from low-carbon sources, we will continue to pump carbon into the atmosphere, and that cannot be justified. Secondly, the amount of oil and gas in the North sea is slowly but surely declining. That means that, if we do not do anything about it, we will import more oil and gas from other parts of the world. That is an especially serious prospect when we consider that that oil and gas will, in many cases, be coming from areas that have huge political problems. I therefore think that nuclear needs to be part of the mix.
	That is my view and it is the Government's view, but I have given an undertaking that we will consult on that because people need to engage with the argument. As I said earlier, that argument will not go away and it is essential that we engage with it. If people have better solutions, let us hear them, but for goodness' sake do not think that, by putting off the decision, we will not be faced with the difficult choices that any Government worth their name have to take.

Alistair Darling: My right hon. Friend is right. Last winter, there was a shock to the system in that we did not get the expected gas supplies. The result was that wholesale prices went up and the prices being paid by steelmakers and other heavy industrial users were far higher than they should have been. This year, because we now have additional gas coming from Norway, the Netherlands and Belgium, and because we now have greater capability in terms of bringing in liquefied natural gas, and taken other new measures too, wholesales prices have come down by about 60 per cent. and, thankfully, those prices are about to be passed on to domestic consumers as well as industrial consumers. However, my right hon. Friend is right: if we do nothing—if we ignore the problems that we can see arising in the next 10 to 15 years—we will have very severe energy problems. I am prepared to put up with a six or seven week delay because, frankly, it is better to get right how we deal with the big problems over the next 20 to 30 years.

Alistair Darling: I agree with the first part of the hon. Gentleman's question. Nuclear is, without doubt, a lower carbon form of producing energy—it is not carbon free, but it is much lower. I also believe that although distributed energy—small-scale energy—is an important part of the mix, it can never be an answer despite what Greenpeace and others have suggested from time to time. We could not possibly end up depending on thousands of different producers to make sure that we have enough electricity, for example, to provide for our needs across the entire country. Distributed energy does, however, have a part to play.
	On the delay, my soundings are that industry would prefer that we got the consultation right—that we put up with a six or seven week delay before we publish the White Paper and the associated consultations—as long as we reach decisions in a reasonable time. I think that we will do so before the end of this year—in the autumn. If we can get that right, there is no reason to believe that we cannot make sure that we have an energy policy that is back on track and that can provide for us in the way that I have described.

David Kidney: Does my right hon. Friend agree that we are right to focus support increasingly on clusters of manufacturers and their supply chains by sectoral activity? If she does, and bearing in mind our ambitious target for renewable energy, does she agree that there is an urgent need to expand our base of clusters for renewable energy? If she is with me so far, could she bear in mind for the next time we meet that Stafford is an excellent location for such a cluster, because of its 100 years of experience in power and its existing experiences with solar, wind and biomass, and because we have the only factory in the whole of the UK manufacturing transformers, with worldwide experience in transmission and distribution.

Mark Lazarowicz: One of the ways in which the Minister's Department supports renewable technology is through the low carbon buildings programme, which is so successful that it runs out of money every month. As a result, people who miss the cut-off date have to apply again the next month. As that does not encourage householders to apply under the scheme and is destructive of industry, will the Minister consider providing more funds for the low carbon building programme, so that we do not have that arbitrary cut-off period every month?

Meg Munn: My hon. Friend asks an enormously important question. The Home Office funding for the Poppy scheme, which is based in London, between 2003 and 2006 totalled £2 million. Last year, we entered into a £2.4 million funding agreement to provide 25 crisis places, 10 resettlement places and the first ever outreach service for UK victims of trafficking. Work is going on to develop places outside London, and we are examining the situation are part of our overall review of support for vulnerable people.

Justine Greening: May we have a debate on youth-on-youth crime? In the last fortnight we have seen its tragic consequences in Peckham, Clapham and Streatham, but that is just the tip of the iceberg. What is not reported so much is that last year in London 14,000 11-to-16-year-olds were recorded as having been mugged, including 271 children aged 10 or under. We know that only one in five real muggings ever makes it into the police figures. May we debate the serious problem that faces the country—the fact that our current generation of teenagers simply cannot walk the streets feeling safe?

Jack Straw: I should be delighted to arrange a debate on the matter. In fact most crime, particularly street crime, is youth-on-youth: it was ever thus. The difference between now and the time when my children were growing up on the streets of London is that the streets are very much safer than they were and the number of police officers available—including those in Lambeth and Southwark—is much greater, as not just the Major but the Metropolitan Police Commissioner will tell everyone.

Patrick Cormack: As I have this morning received a written assurance from the Prime Minister that the Climate Change Bill will be subject to pre-legislative scrutiny, which I am sure the whole House will welcome, will the Leader of the House tell us when he expects the Bill to be published and the House to have a first chance to debate it?

Jon Trickett: May I associate myself with the comments that right hon. Friend just made? The point that I wanted to raise—the Whips are now looking at me, as you may notice, Mr. Speaker—is that, as he will be aware, a minority of unscrupulous employers use the exemptions allowed by agency workers legislation to utilise east European migrant workers to undermine pay and conditions, particularly in my patch, in South Elmsall and South Kirkby. That is leading to disruption of community relations and the growth of extremist parties. Will he indicate what the Government's position is in relation to the agency workers directive in Europe and, more particularly, will he ensure that enough time is made available for the moderate and reasonable proposals contained in the Temporary Agency Workers (Prevention of Less Favourable Treatment) Bill, a private Member's Bill that is to be debated next Friday, 2 March?

Jack Straw: I applaud  The Sun and its campaign on this serious issue. I recently had to pay £45 to watch Blackburn Rovers being beaten at Stamford Bridge. The truth is that some clubs, of which Blackburn Rovers is one, are doing their best to ensure that more people are attracted to watch the game, while others are fleecing and pricing the ordinary spectator out of the market and making it increasingly difficult to fit in attendance at games with family timetables by shifting around the times of matches. All those issues should be debated.

Tony Wright: I welcome very much what my right hon. Friend has said today, and the way in which he has said it. However, does he not agree that there can no longer be any question but that the ombudsman was right to say that the information that Governments of both parties had produced was misleading, and that that was maladministration? Can we clear that question out of the way now? Secondly, my right hon. Friend said that there had sometimes between disagreements between Governments and the ombudsman in the past, and that is true. However, in every past case this House has insisted that there should be a satisfactory resolution of the difficulty. Is it not unfortunate that it has taken a judge to ensure that that will happen in this case?

John Hutton: No, it is certainly not time to look at a citizen's pension, because the costs would be completely unsustainable. They would certainly be unsustainable if the hon. Gentleman got his way and imposed such a profligate policy on the poor innocent taxpayers of Scotland, so I would not recommend going down that route. On the figures quoted, I agree that it is important to have a common language in dealing with this issue, and we have tried to present our findings and our view of the cost of financial assistance scheme in real and genuine terms, and on the same basis as the Government produce their financial accounts generally. It is therefore not true to say that there has been any sleight of hand. The judge makes clear the difference between the £3 billion and £15 billion figures. One figure is net present value and the other is cash—it is all cash—and that is how the Government produce their accounts. The difference is important as a matter of presentation, but it is
	"not, in truth, a difference of substance".

Henry Bellingham: I welcome the fact that the Secretary of State appears to have shifted his attitude and policy on this issue. Is he aware that I represent many of the Albert Fisher pensioners? Most of them are in their late 50s and have lost on average 25 years' worth of occupational pension benefits. When they eventually reach retirement age, the FAS will give them less then 50 per cent. of their expected pension, so obviously they are still very angry. Further to the question asked by the hon. Member for Angus (Mr. Weir) about the overall cost, will the Secretary of State elaborate on his answer? Surely from the £15 billion must be deducted the cost of benefits to constituents such as mine, and, indeed, the tax that they would pay if they received a bigger pension.

Graham Stuart: Like many Members, I welcome the Secretary of State's tone, but the issue is more one of trust than tone. Our constituents must be wondering if the Government will ever admit that they are wrong. The Secretary of State has said that he has not yet decided on whether to appeal, but the precise wording of his pre-prepared statement reads, "We have not yet decided the precise grounds for such an appeal". That is the complete sentence, and it suggests to me that despite his contrite tone today, the Government are set on carrying on the misery and suffering of so many people who have simply paid into a pension for security in old age.

Tony McNulty: I thank my right hon. Friend for that intervention. I will be coming on to precisely that point, dealing not only with the relationship between the Home Office, the Crown Prosecution Service and the police, but the processes to which Lord Carlile refers and on which we may be able to improve. If, when I discuss those matters, my right hon. Friend is not satisfied, I will happily allow him to intervene again.
	As I was saying, there is a comparatively small number of individuals for whom neither prosecution nor deportation is viable. The Security Service assesses that they are involved in terrorism and that they pose a risk to public safety, but without control orders those individuals would be free to continue to engage in terrorist-related activity. That is clearly a risk that the Government are not prepared to take.
	This assessment of the necessity for control orders is shared by the noble Lord Carlile of Berriew, whose annual report on the operation of the Prevention of Terrorism Act 2005 was published on 19 February. In paragraph 7, he states:
	"I would prefer it if no control order system was necessary. However, in my view, it remains necessary given the nature of the risk of terrorist attacks and the difficulty of dealing with a small number of cases. Control orders provide a proportional means of dealing with those cases, if administered correctly."
	I would like to place on record the Government's gratitude to Lord Carlile, who has produced another carefully considered, valuable report, which should—and, I know, will—inform today's debate. The two other statutory consultees—the director-general of the Security Service and the intelligence services commissioner—are also content with the intention to renew the legislation.
	However, some hon. Members may argue that the legislation should not be renewed because control orders are not working. Let me underline to the House that control orders have been successful in preventing, or at least limiting, these individuals' involvement in terrorist-related activity—a view shared by the Security Service. No one is pretending that control orders are 100 per cent. effective. They are weaker and less effective than we would want, not least because of recent court judgements. As a result, there is inevitably a real risk that individuals on control orders will re-engage in terrorism or abscond. No one, I think, from whatever side of the argument they come, would agree that control orders are entirely satisfactory.

Tony McNulty: Not the hon. Gentleman's last point. I had the good fortune of making a subsequent speech at RUSI during the same event, but it was more readily on these matters than on the Human Rights Act 1998. My noble Friend the Lord Chancellor said that the Act was a shield in defence of democracy and against the terrorists—a very important point to make. I quite understand why the hon. Gentleman would, from his own perspective, choose to pick out from the Lord Chancellor's speech that which would accord with his own argument—I fully accept that; it is entirely fair—but the hon. Gentleman should not hold his breath if he thinks that somehow soon the Human Rights Act is going to fall away from the statute book. There are a number of substantial reasons why that should be the case. The issue clearly underpins much of our deliberations today, but you will know, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that this is not a debate on the pros and cons of the Human Rights Act, although it has some bearing on the case.
	No one is pretending, as I said, that control order are 100 per cent. effective. I emphasise the inevitable and real risk, given the unsatisfactory nature of the control order regime, that individuals on control orders will re-engage in terrorism or abscond. Indeed, as the House will know, there have already been three well publicised absconds, but Lord Carlile addresses the point cogently in his report in paragraph 59, where he states that
	"the disappearance of a small minority does not necessarily undermine the benefits of the orders in relation to the majority".
	More encouragingly, the police, prosecution authorities and the courts take enforcing control orders seriously. In January, the courts sentenced an individual to five months' imprisonment for breaching his control order. Charges against other individuals are pending.

Tony McNulty: I think that that is broadly right, in the sense that much of what my right hon. Friend describes does pertain, albeit not as formally as suggested by Lord Carlile. Lord Carlile referred to cases in which there was a real threat but very little evidence, resulting in the exchange between the CPS and the police being almost perfunctory. Such cases need to be looked at in more detail. Without being privy to the details of every single discussion between the police and the CPS, I am sure that the process will evolve in the way that my right hon. Friend has suggested. This relates to the tactics involved in issuing a control order immediately, and the need to strike a balance between having more time to gather evidence in the hope of being able to prosecute, and the real public safety threat that endures at the same time. This is always a matter of balance. The review will look at all these elements, and we will ensure that the House is kept up to date on our deliberations, either through our regular report on control orders or through some other channel. That is an entirely fair point, as is Lord Carlile's broader point about an exit strategy and about keeping those elements constantly under review.
	The Secretary of State always consults the police, before making an order, on whether there is evidence available that could realistically be used for the purposes of a prosecution of the individual for an offence relating to terrorism. But the Government, with the police and the CPS, will review procedures for consultation in the light of Lord Carlile's recommendation. The only thing that I am not sure about, in relation to the point raised by my right hon. Friend the Member for Southampton, Itchen, is the constitutional point that the Home Office, the CPS and the police would all have to sit down together to consider each and every case. The Home Office is the strategic safeguard of the law, and these cases are certainly a matter for the police and the CPS. I will keep the House informed of any developments.
	To sum up, although unsatisfactory, as I have said, it is the Government's belief that control orders are necessary to address the continuing threat posed by terrorism. That belief is supported by Lord Carlile in his annual report. He explicitly reiterates his conclusion from his previous report, stating:
	"I remain of the view that, as a last resort (only), the control order system as operated currently in its non-derogating form is a justifiable and proportional safety valve for the proper protection of civil society."
	The Government's role, first and foremost, must be to protect the public. Control orders help to achieve that while maintaining the necessary safeguards to protects individuals' rights. They are focused, almost by definition, on a very small number of individuals, but, none the less, given the seriousness of the conditions imposed, it is right and proper that there are judicial and parliamentary safeguards on the scheme. It is necessary to renew it for a further year and I commend the order to the House.

William Cash: My first point is that I am extremely glad that Lord Carlile has produced yet another report. We are fortunate to have him to provide insights into the way in which the Prevention of Terrorism Act 2005 operates. I have to say that I was anything but convinced on the subject. The Minister will understand that I have taken a position of principle on the matter, with regard to the former Home Secretary, the right hon. Member for Norwich, South (Mr. Clarke). I have the gravest reservations about the way in which the Act was passed, after an all-night sitting, and about the construction of the Act.
	We are not talking about merely technical matters; questions of liberty are raised, and I am deeply worried about the fact that people are not necessarily being given the full opportunity to have their cases adequately considered in the courts in the right manner. I was so concerned about the Prevention of Terrorism Bill when it was before the House that I produced my own Bill, called the Prevention of Terrorism (No.2) Bill, the essence of which was to provide, in a couple of clauses, that we would not ring-fence the Human Rights Act 1998. However, my Front-Bench colleagues insisted on doing so through an amendment to the Government's Bill. It is essential that it is understood that my Bill would have provided for due process, a fair trial and habeas corpus for alleged suspects.
	As I say, a question of liberty arises, but unfortunately, the 2005 Act has a convoluted construction because of the problems of entirely avoiding having to deal with the unfortunate implications of the Human Rights Act. There was the whole concept of non-derogating control orders to consider, as well as the Act's convoluted language, and the struggle within it. As one reads the Act, one can picture the draftsman desperately trying to achieve the objectives, which are to provide for proper public security, and to keep under proper control people who are, or who are alleged to be, a serious danger to the public. By the way, given that three of the people subject to control orders have absconded, it does not seem to have worked. One can sense from the very wording of the statute the desperate struggle of parliamentary counsel, who were trying to keep themselves within the framework of the Human Rights Act as far as possible, and that became the object of the exercise. It is a simple fact that if we had legislated without reference to the Human Rights Act, we could have come up with solutions that would have enabled us to achieve all the objectives, namely public security, giving a fair trial to the people against whom there are allegations, providing them with due process, and ensuring that there was habeas corpus.
	A red judge, as we call them, can be made available at any time, and as Lord Justice Steyn has said, the most sacred duty of any judge is to support the notion and the practicality of habeas corpus. However, as I put it to the former Home Secretary, who was in such a muddle when answering questions that I asked during proceedings on of the Government's Bill and before then, what has been created is a mish-mash—an inadequate, unstructured Act of Parliament that simply does not serve the purpose of maintaining public security on the one hand, or of ensuring fair trial, due process and habeas corpus on the other. Those are my intrinsic objections, and they cannot get more lethal than that.
	I understand entirely why my hon. Friend, and good friend, the Member for Newark (Patrick Mercer) said that the Opposition will, with great reluctance, support the Government today. In all fairness, I appreciate that there are complications, but the Minister himself admits that the current situation is not a satisfactory way of dealing with things. Surely this is not the basis on which Parliament should be legislating. Today, the Front-Bench spokesmen on both sides of the House are agreeing, in a virtually empty House, to continue an order that is of huge importance, not only because of the noble Lord Carlile's report, but because of the intrinsic questions that it raises about the relationship of the state to the individual, the liberty of the subject and public security. The measures are to be put to the House on a Thursday afternoon, in a continuation order, after one and a half hours of debate. The issue of great importance, and we were kept up all night to discuss these incredibly important matters on an emergency basis, but everybody knows that the legislation is not working properly.
	I will not carp and be disrespectful, but with the greatest respect to my hon. Friends and Government Members, I point out that we are faced with legislation that is inadequate, hopeless and convoluted. It aims to deal with the central problem of how to balance the needs of public security in relation to terrorism with the issue of liberty, but I regret that we could not come up with a better solution, and that we will continue in limbo for another year. That is extraordinary, which is why I intend to vote against the order, and I have informed the Whips accordingly. It is a matter of concern that we have not had a long enough debate to deal with these serious issues.
	There has not been a single mention to the 28-day period. Although it was agreed in the House that 28 days would be the maximum, I have always expressed grave doubts about whether that period would be sufficient. We have only one and a half hours to deal with a matter that led a Home Secretary to resign and provoked enormous debate and, given the Prime Minister's insistence on 90 days, revolt in the Cabinet. So far, however, that period has not even been mentioned. Two former Attorneys-General in the House of Lords said that the minimum period ought to be 45 days. No doubt, they talked to Lord Carlile about the implications of his report and the issues that arose from it. I accept that at this stage it has not been necessary to take up the full 28 days, but that is not the issue, as we must consider whether or not it is necessary to increase that period in the coming year.
	I do not know the answer, but we have an arbitrary cut-off date. I am not wedded to 90 days, and would probably settle for 60 or even 45. When the matter was first debated, I believe that Conservative Front-Bench spokesmen did not even want to change the limit to 14 days, although I may be wrong about that. The limit gradually increased until the 28-day period was accepted. However, whether it is 28 or 14 days, that will not necessarily solve the problem at a given time. If we provide proper, fair trials—even the worst terrorists are entitled to a fair trial—and if there is due process, with habeas corpus and proper safeguards from a red judge to ensure that suspects are not ill-treated, alleged suspects can be held for a reasonable length of time. Given modern communication methods and the difficulties highlighted in reports by the Metropolitan police and others, it may be necessary to extend the period beyond 28 days.

Tony McNulty: I want to make some progress before I give way. As the hon. Member for Sheffield, Hallam (Mr. Clegg) has made very clear, our time is limited.
	It was interesting to note that the hon. Gentleman had no answer to the intervention from my hon. Friend the Member for West Bromwich, East (Mr. Watson), other than to express the plaintive hope that somehow evidence would be found against the 18 people currently under control orders and that public safety would prevail.

Tony McNulty: My hon. Friend asked a clear question: what would happen if the control orders governing those 18 were struck down tomorrow. The hon. Gentleman responded that hopefully there would be a bit more surveillance, and hopefully some evidence would come out of the woodwork so that they could be prosecuted. That is not sufficient.  [Interruption.] These are not the politics of terror. This is not a little schoolboys' club; we need to be very serious.  [Interruption.] I was merely responding to the words of the hon. Member for Sheffield, Hallam.
	The hon. Member for Newark (Patrick Mercer) mentioned a gentleman who entered a mosque. I said that he had not been served with a control order. That was an error: he had been served with an order, but paragraph 26 of the Carlile report makes it clear that he had not breached it. Given that entrance to the mosque was permissible under the control order, there was no obvious reason for the police to pursue the matter.

Tony McNulty: I shall come back to Newark first. If I have time, I will indulge the hon. Member for Stone.

Caroline Flint: It is a mark of the progress that this Government have made in safeguarding the nation's health that possibly for the first time, public health has the opportunity to take its rightful place as one of the cornerstones of our health policy, moving the national health service towards being a prevention as well as treatment service. The programme of investment and health reform has transformed the NHS from a crisis service to one that is on the point of being able to deliver the health and well-being of every citizen, treating people as individuals, rather than as numbers on a waiting list. Clearly, in 2007 our NHS is more local than ever before. The service has been devolved. It is more transparent in its financial dealings, and its public health initiatives draw in partners across the public, private and voluntary sectors.
	This Government established public health as one of the six key objectives in the NHS plan. In the past few years we have published a groundbreaking public health White Paper, "Choosing Health: Making health choices easier", completed 116 of the 210 commitments set out in it, and mapped the need and extent of the public health challenge in "Health Challenge England—next steps for Choosing Health". In doing so, we have equipped those at the most local level to understand better the complex needs of their communities and neighbourhoods so that they can provide the best possible health service. In the face of the advice from the Conservative party not to legislate at all, this Government introduced comprehensive legislation for workplaces and enclosed public places to become smoke free by 1 July 2007—more extensive smoke-free provisions than any other country.
	More than 100 years ago, enlightened reformers like John Snow did not look at the fashions of the affluent minority, with their love of spas, gyms and country retreats to convalesce after illness. Instead, Snow examined the conditions of the majority—the slums, the open sewers, the poor air and the dusty factories. He saw the connection between a lack of clean water and the spread of cholera. The modern sewage systems and the fresh water that resulted from them were instrumental in reducing the impact of communicable diseases. After world war two, the mass vaccination programmes all but eliminated diseases such as polio. Today, our vaccination programmes are more far-reaching than ever and public information is more extensive than ever. However, although those are good things, they are insufficient. Life in the 21st century demands new approaches to public health. I hope that that will inform our debate.

Caroline Flint: I agree totally with my right hon. Friend. In a number of areas—tobacco control, the ban on advertising, the world-class services on the NHS to support people to give up smoking, and the legislation that will come into force in England on 1 July—we need take no lessons from the Conservative party.

Caroline Flint: My hon. Friend makes some pertinent points. Better management of, and timing of the hours of, licensed establishments can be a positive aspect of community management, particularly, but not exclusively, in our town centres. We have also engaged with the alcohol industry on the labelling of products, for example, and I hope that there will be an outcome to those discussions shortly.
	We will also discuss the issue of promotions, not only in licensed establishments such as pubs and clubs, but in retail outlets. Indeed, more retail outlets have 24-hour licences than other establishments. At least, that is my perception of the situation from what I see in my local community.
	Another issue is the education of our children and young people, and that is why the Department of Health is working with colleagues in the Department for Education and Skills to improve it. Some 80 per cent. of schools are now participating in our voluntary healthy schools programme—nobody is forcing them to take part—which covers the primary and secondary sectors. In order to be a healthy school, schools have to address not only eating, physical activity and emotional development, but substance misuse, sexual health and alcohol and cigarette use. I am encouraged by that programme. Schools have asked for it and we are trying to provide it. I hope that it will provide greater consistency in the information, advice and support that children and young people need to make informed choices. Parents also need to be engaged and we will do whatever we can to support parents to take that personal responsibility for themselves and their children.
	Research tells us that the overwhelming majority of smokers accept that the habit is bad for their health, but reveals that they need support to kick it, which is why our world-leading NHS stop smoking services were established in 1999. Some 1.6 million fewer people smoke today compared to 1998 and I hope that the new smoking legislation coming into effect in July will see a further reduction in the numbers who smoke. We still face some challenges in that area.

Andrew Murrison: I am not going to give way to the hon. Lady for a little while, although I promise to do so if I have time.
	Given the great complexity of public health, it is a pity that the Government have sought to balkanise it and set responsibility for it at a relatively junior level. In December, the Minister rightly pointed out that the Black report of 1980 did not receive the attention it deserved, but she did not admit that in 1999 her Government ignored the Acheson report, which covered almost the same ground. That omission was not corrected today. This is the first time that we have debated public health in Government time for more than four years, although the Opposition have been extremely generous in using much of their own time to do so—we did so as recently as December—because we think that it is an important subject.
	The Government, however, have been busy. They appointed a public health Minister and have proceeded to churn out publications of breathtaking vapidity, culminating in last October's "Health Challenge England". They launched their "Small change, big difference" public health campaign in April. Small change indeed! Will the Minister confirm that expenditure on that extravaganza totals £13,360?
	I am reminded of that campaign only because "Small change, big difference" has been recycled as a catchy soundbite on the front of the document that we are discussing. "Health Challenge England" is big on anecdote disguised as case study, but two and a half years after the "Choosing Health" White Paper, we are entitled to expect an update with a clearer sense of direction. Indeed, the document is evidently so inconsequential that the Minister did not even bother mention it in her 30-minute rant the last time that we debated public health on 5 December. Ministers cite reductions since 1997 in mortality from cancer and cardiovascular disease, but are we seriously expected to believe that they are responsible for those reductions? Deaths from those causes are happily in long-term decline, and current trends are simply extrapolations from the 1970s and 1980s.

Andrew Murrison: I must make progress.
	The Department of Health likes to cite 150 lives saved from coronary heart disease since 1996, but in November it was forced to admit that between 1978 and 1996 the equivalent figure was more than 500,000. Spurious claims from Ministers are simply not on. No wonder two thirds of doctors now trust the Opposition more than they trust the Government.
	We know that over the past 10 years obesity, sexually transmitted disease, alcohol-related disease, teenage pregnancy, antique infections such as tuberculosis and syphilis, hepatitis and the consequences of drug abuse have become markedly worse in England, but how do we compare with our European neighbours? When we turn to the World Health Organisation for the information, we find that Britons are the fattest Europeans. Our children are getting fatter faster than children anywhere else in Europe, and the Office for National Statistics notes that they are becoming less active.

Andrew Murrison: We look forward to those that are planned. I am sure that Anita Roddick, who, as I say, has been extremely brave in her remarks to the press recently, will play a full and active part. It is a pity that it requires a celebrity to highlight such an issue for the Government—the Jamie Oliver effect.  [Interruption.] I have to say to the Minister that it is all very well saying that things are rubbish and that I should move on, but I suspect that Wanless himself will continue to make disobliging comments about what she is doing in public health. He is quite clear that she is engaging in phrenetic and unco-ordinated short-term activity—the sort of thing that can be stopped and started just like turning a tap on and off. Wanless is referring to the sort of activities that the Minister mentioned in her interventions regarding plans for hepatitis C.
	I have had exchanges with the Minister through a number of parliamentary questions and answers. I asked about what she has done to anticipate the burden of disease that will arise as a result of hepatitis C infection. I have to say that what I have had back is a big "I don't know." The Government clearly have no idea about what this time bomb involves and have made no preparations to manage it. In public health terms, that is deeply and profoundly worrying.
	Developing his characterisation of a Government thrashing about in public health, Wanless attacks what he calls
	"loose proposals for personal trainers which do not seem well rooted in evidence or particularly clearly thought through".
	He goes on to suggest that these appendages of the "Choosing Health" White Paper are
	"gimmicks that will discredit the public health function".
	For the price of eye-catching but unproven health trainers, we could have, for example, a national programme for screening abdominal aortic aneurysm. We know that that will save thousands of lives, because the pilots have been done and the evidence base is very strong. Every month the Minister delays, however, 200 elderly men die unnecessarily. Screening does not appear at all in the 34 pages of "Health Challenge England". So much for evidence-based policy making.

Andrew Murrison: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. He will be aware that a few days ago the surgeons who were involved in the pilot visited the Palace of Westminster, and we managed to screen about 30 parliamentarians from all parties, from the Lords and the Commons. The exercise was a huge success, and I know that the Minister received some parliamentary questions as a result of it. I am not sure whether the hon. Gentleman was one of those tested; perhaps not, as he is certainly too young to be in the target population. If he had attended the exercise, however, it would have been explained to him that the resources are in place. We are not talking about large resources in terms of surgeon or theatre time.
	Indeed, all that work has been done, and the national screening committee has looked at it. I have been in correspondence with the Minister on the matter, however, and there appears for some reason to be a reluctance to get the process started. I am sure that she will eventually get it started, but, as I said, it is a pity that there is such a delay. The hon. Gentleman said that 3,000 lives a year could be saved, which is perhaps a bit optimistic, but a conservative estimate of 200 people a month is reasonable. It is a pity that we are losing those people unnecessarily when the evidence suggests that we should be using such an arrangement. That is the important point: the evidence suggests that we should be doing this, and it perhaps does not suggest that we should be engaging in some of the other interventions about which the Minister seems so enthusiastic.
	On evidence-based policy making, I would like to refer to a parliamentary answer that my hon. Friend the Member for South Cambridgeshire (Mr. Lansley) has received from the Minister of State, Department of Health, the right hon. Member for Doncaster, Central (Ms Winterton), who has recently arrived.
	The question was:
	"To ask the Secretary of State for Health what the evidential basis is for the statement on page 10 of the National Director For Heart Disease and Stroke's report entitled "Mending Hearts and Brains", published on 5 December 2006, that 5 per cent. of patients used to die while waiting up to two years for heart operations."
	The answer was:
	"'Mending hearts and brains'", the document in which the figure of 5 per cent. features, is a personal report from the National Clinical Director for Heart Disease and Stroke. This figure of 5 per cent. reflects a judgement based on expert professional knowledge and experience rather than research evidence, of which there is little".
	The Minister was therefore being sold anecdote as evidence until my scrupulously evidence-based hon. Friend prompted her to be more inquisitive.
	It is extremely important that we are clear that public health should be rigorously evidence based. My hon. Friend the Member for South Cambridgeshire, at any rate, would be very much an evidence-based Secretary of State for Health. We would not engage in some of the more dubious interventions of this Government, who have been going down rabbit holes left, right and centre. That simply is not helpful, and it brings public health into a degree of disrepute.
	A pattern is emerging characterised by loose adherence to the concept of evidence-based policy making and a willingness to sort out the deficits of the acute service by siphoning funds from more elective areas: notably, training and public health. Let us be clear: all politicians have a horizon that rarely extends beyond four or five years. That is the problem for public health: for as long as funds are not protected, it will always be first in line to be tapped when times are tough. To succeed, as Derek Wanless has said, we need a long-term commitment to public health. Given the raid on funding identified by the CMO, that means ring-fencing; there is simply no other way. I am sure that the Minister will come to realise that in the fullness of time.

Kevin Barron: In answer to the hon. Member for Westbury (Dr. Murrison), I hope that his Front-Bench colleagues will be a bit more responsible in their comments about Anita Roddick's celebrity launch earlier this week for hepatitis C than they were about Jamie Oliver's celebrity launch in relation to healthier eating choices in schools. At a school quite close to my constituency, a group of parents tried to defeat the introduction of healthier meals, but the hon. Member for Henley (Mr. Johnson) said that there was nothing wrong with them pushing pies through school railings—probably a habit that he picked up in the Bullingdon club when he was up at Oxford.
	With regard to public health, the issue of smoking has been mentioned, and the hon. Member for Westbury referred to some European countries. I do not know whether other Members saw in  The Sunday Times this week the extraordinary article, which I assume was accurate—perhaps I am naïve—under the headline "MEPs' cigarette ban goes up in smoke". By all accounts, it appears that the European Parliament had decided to introduce a smoking ban within its confines on 1 January this year, but withdrew it after a few days.
	The article went on to say:
	"A 12-member committee of MEPs, which included some smokers, decided that the ban, which had been in place in the parliament's premises in Brussels and Strasbourg since the start of last month, was 'unenforceable'"
	and had been withdrawn. According to the article, a UK Independence party member, Nigel Farage, said:
	"'I have been ignoring it since January 1...and I have smoked in more places than before.'"
	 [Interruption.] The hon. Member for Hemel Hempstead (Mike Penning) says that it is no business of the EU where people smoke. I hope that we get a more responsible approach from 1 July when it comes to smoking in public places.

Diana Johnson: I was really disappointed in the comments made by the hon. Member for Westbury (Dr. Murrison). They struck me as very old-fashioned in their approach to public health, and demonstrated a narrowness of approach and a failure to acknowledge that public health embraces most of what goes on in our society. We need to take a much more holistic approach to public health, rather than concentrating on narrow clinical indicators, which many of today's contributions seem to have done. The hon. Gentleman also failed to deal with some of the underlying issues affecting public health in the United Kingdom today, including school food. I shall talk in a moment about some of the good work being done in Hull from which the rest of the country could learn.
	I was pleased to hear the contribution of my right hon. Friend the Member for Rother Valley (Mr. Barron), who took a much broader approach to the public health debate, which is the proper and most sensible approach. I was also intrigued to hear the comments of the hon. Member for Southport (Dr. Pugh), who talked about public health needing all the friends that it could get. In my experience, the Lib Dems are certainly not the friends of public health in my constituency.
	I should like to add to the broader comments of my right hon. Friend the Member for Rother Valley. Enormous strides have been made in recent years, and we should congratulate the Government on making public health a key target for the well-being of the United Kingdom, as well as its economic well-being. Having healthy citizens will be key to our success.
	Public health is a broad issue, and all public sector bodies and authorities should include improving the public health of their communities among their key targets. I was a local authority councillor for eight years, and I have been a non-executive director on a primary care trust and on an acute district general hospital trust. I have seen that we can really make a different when the NHS, local government and the voluntary and community sectors work together. Leaving public health to the NHS alone, however, is not going to solve the problem.
	Investing in and improving public health has enormous implications for the regeneration of areas such as my constituency. Communities that are blighted by poor health often have low educational achievement, poor housing and poverty of ambition. Those communities are often fractured. As a country, we cannot afford to waste the talents and abilities of people living in our communities. We, as elected politicians, cannot stand by and refuse to accept our responsibility to improve public health.
	I want to make a couple of comments about yesterday's debate on the acute sector and the reconfiguration in the NHS. The acute sector swallows up huge amounts of the NHS budget. I was interested in the comments made yesterday by my hon. Friend the Member for Dartford (Dr. Stoate), who said that the vast majority of hospital admissions should be seen as a failure of health policy. I agree wholeheartedly with that analysis. We need to front-load the public health budget in the NHS now to reap the reward in the years to come. If we do so, we will see a reduction in admissions to hospitals and a reduction in the number of people with conditions such as diabetes, coronary heart disease and strokes, and we will improve the life chances and opportunities of people all around the country, who will live longer, in better health. The acute sector has always been the focus of the NHS, but that focus is now shifting—rightly—to improving community facilities and investing in the wider preventive public health agenda.

Diana Johnson: With the greatest respect, the hon. Gentleman misunderstands my point. Also, I am concerned that my primary care trust, which was in balance in the last financial year, had to bail out his PCT in the East Riding, which massively overspent. There are higher health inequalities among my constituents than among those in the East Riding, so I am not going to take any lectures from the hon. Gentleman. I am concerned that yesterday a lot of Opposition Members spoke about wanting additional funding for their constituencies and constituents. They failed to grasp the bigger picture in relation to public health. All that Conservative Members seem to be interested in is keeping money going into the acute sector. They do not seem to be able to grasp that, if we put money into the preventive public health agenda now, that will save money in the long run. It is a shame that there still seems to be a disappointing, old-fashioned view among Opposition Members.
	I want to turn to a few of the interesting and exciting initiatives that are happening in Hull, which, as I have said, has poor health standards. We have high levels of coronary heart disease and teenage pregnancy, but we are starting to address and turn around some of those issues. That does not happen overnight. A generational commitment has to be made. We already have a joint director of public health, Dr. Wendy Richardson, who is jointly appointed with the PCT and the local authority. She is doing an excellent job.
	That leads me on to a piece of work that has been jointly commissioned. The local authority and the PCT are on board. The scheme is about free healthy school meals in all our primary and special schools in the city and it is the only initiative of its type in the United Kingdom. It focuses on the nutritional and educational benefits of getting children to eat well while they are at school. It is called the eat well, do well scheme and the children all get a free breakfast, free fruit throughout primary school, and free lunches and after-school refreshments, all of which are healthy.
	I point out to the hon. Member for Southport, in particular, that take-up has increased. In some of our schools in the city centre, take-up of free healthy school meals is more than 90 per cent. The pilot, which has been going on for about two and a half years, is being evaluated by Hull university. Professor Colquhoun is providing interim reports, which all show that the policy is having a dramatic effect on the well-being of children in our primary schools. We might not see the savings from the scheme for 20, 30 or 40 years, when the children will have grown up and might otherwise have developed problems such as coronary heart disease, cancer and diabetes. However, we are making the investment now, and that fits in well with investing now to save for the future.
	The scheme is making a real difference to educational achievement in the city, but the public health angle is the key reason why it should continue. It is disappointing that the Liberal Democrat council has an old-fashioned view—a silo mentality—of what local authorities should provide and what health services should provide. I am keen on examining ways of pooling budgets so that joint work can be carried out, given that such projects can provide positive outcomes.
	I am not suggesting for one moment that such a scheme should be implemented throughout the whole country. I am interested in what works locally. We have talked a lot about local initiatives for local problems. The scheme seems to be working in Kingston upon Hull, but I am not sure that it is needed somewhere like Kingston upon Thames. There is great public support for the scheme. A poll that was held between 27 and 31 January by the  Hull Daily Mail, my local paper, showed that 76.6 per cent. of respondents supported continuing the scheme as free for all children in primary and special schools. That shows that there is a real commitment to the scheme in the local community. It is depressing that there is such an old-fashioned silo mentality about what local authorities should and should not provide. We all have a duty to improve the public health of our communities. I will take up what the hon. Member for Southport said about public health needing all the friends that it can get. He is absolutely right; it is just a great shame that the Lib Dems are not friends of public health.
	Teenage pregnancy has been an ongoing problem for the city of Hull for many years, but the Labour Government have put resources into trying to tackle it. They have given resources to provide education about the means to avoid teenage pregnancy. They are tackling the underlying circumstances that motivate young people to get pregnant, and they are supporting young parents to get back into education and training and to access health services so that they can make positive choices about future conceptions. The latest figures show that the trend is going down again, which is welcome, but there is still some way to go.
	I want to focus on two projects that show best practice involving boys and young men. There is a sexual health project in Hull for those people that is run by Cornerhouse, which undertakes one-to-one support and group work and trains staff working with young people around the city. Additionally, work that is going on with young fathers has been highlighted as a model of best practice. However, there is still a funding problem with that. Unfortunately, the Lib Dem council seems to fail to understand that it has a duty to this mainstream scheme. The primary care trust is providing 50 per cent. of the funding and the local authority should be providing 50 per cent. There seems to have been a problem involving the Liberal Democrat council accepting its responsibility. It is a great shame that the council is not a friend of public health.
	The doula project in Hull is unique to the city because it is the only project in the country that uses volunteer doulas who are trained to get alongside and befriend pregnant women and to provide extra support to mothers in the early weeks and months after birth. The excellent project helps to provide a focus on public health by working with young families, especially mothers. It is funded through Newland and Avenues Sure Start, which highlights the commitment to improving public health across the piece.
	We need to consider pooling budgets and to examine local area agreements and strengthening the role of local strategic partnerships. We need to make sure that public health is at the centre of local policies and the decisions that are taken locally. At the moment, we are still acting as if we are in silos and do not all have a responsibility for public health, but we all do.

David Amess: I suppose that any debate on public health will be wide-ranging, and this one certainly has been. Increasingly, debates on health follow a familiar pattern: the Government claim that the health service is performing splendidly and are very critical of how it was under Conservative Governments. Indeed, the Government say that life in Britain is wonderful and that it was awful under Conservative Governments. Listening to the Prime Minister being interviewed by John Humphrys this morning, I realised that he is suffering from a health problem—he is deluded—and the problem is catching. I listened very carefully to what the Minister with responsibility for public health had to say. I have always said that I think her very genuine in her commitment to public health, but I was concerned about her overall strategy. We have these debates—I do not suppose that we listen to each other—and nothing changes. However, I want to touch on three subjects, hoping, in an optimistic frame of mind, to make an impact.
	Health outcomes have improved dramatically; 150 years ago men lived, on average, to age 40 and women to 41, but today men live to 77 and women to 81. More extraordinary is the infant death rate, because it has fallen from more than 100 deaths for every 1,000 births in 1905 to five deaths for every 1,000 in 2004. Those results are wonderful, and the Minister is right to nod. Throughout the world all those outcomes are improving. The worry that my colleagues and I have is that on those two points our outcomes are not as good as those of any number of other countries. In a debate on public health the House might consider why that is.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Westbury (Dr. Murrison) was entirely right to refer to the chief medical officer's report. I would not describe the chief medical officer as a Conservative party lackey. In his annual report on public health, he devoted a whole chapter to public health budgets, which he entitled, "Raiding public health budgets can kill". He went on to state that he had talked extensively to public health professionals throughout the NHS over the past two years and the following points consistently emerged from their accounts.
	The first was that an
	"Expressed commitment to public health by many health bodies is not matched by concerted action."
	That must be a worry for the Government. The second point was that
	"Public health budgets are regularly raided to find funding to reduce hospital financial deficits or to meet productivity targets in clinical services...losing funding and the skills that had been acquired over time."
	Those are two points that have been made by the chief medical officer, not Conservative Members, and I ask the Minister, who I dare say will not have a great deal of time to wind up the debate, if she will comment on them.
	The second issue that I want to raise is the Health Committee's report on obesity, which was ground-breaking and has had enormous effect. I know that the Minister with responsibility for public health took it very seriously. In praising industry and enterprise, I want to praise Sainsbury's—I do not have shares in Sainsbury's, but I might be offered some—which this week launched the most comprehensive alcohol labelling system to date. It is an excellent strategy and it is certainly what the Health Committee asked for.
	I cannot believe that the Minister is content with the childhood obesity situation. In 1999 the Government abandoned the targets in the Conservative Government's first ever public health White Paper, which aimed to reduce rates of obesity in the general population to 6 per cent. among men and 8 per cent. among women. Current projections are that by 2010 the figures will have risen, and 33 per cent. of men and 28 per cent. of women will be obese. In addition, the National Audit Office has criticised the Government's progress towards meeting the obesity public service agreement targets.
	As for childhood obesity, in 1995, 9.9 per cent. of children aged between two and 10 were obese, and that figure has steadily risen to 13.4 per cent. The Minister is only too well aware of the arguments on why that is, but what we would welcome are solutions. I welcome Ofcom's decision to ban advertisements for unhealthy food. I remember when three Ministers gave evidence to the Health Committee on the subject—in fact, I think that the Under-Secretary of State for Health, the hon. Member for Bury, South (Mr. Lewis) was on the Committee—and there was an argument about the banning of advertisements for unhealthy food, so it is good that a ban has been introduced.
	I am concerned about the Public Accounts Committee report. It made eight recommendations that any hon. Member may read, and its conclusions were very worrying. For instance, it says:
	"Important messages on diet and lifestyle have yet to get through to parents and children as clearly or as effectively as required.
	To date, there has been little comprehensive, published research on the effectiveness of prevention and treatment strategies for child obesity and, consequently, the Departments have...done little to intervene directly with individual children who are obese or at risk of becoming so or their parents."
	I have two other, quick points to mention; I know that four other colleagues wish to speak, and I do not believe in being greedy with the time.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Westbury mentioned Hepatitis C, and I happen to be the chairman of the all-party hepatology group. This week, Dame Anita Roddick attended our reception, and I am delighted to say that I awarded her with an Oscar, ahead of Sunday's Oscars, in which I hope Dame Helen Mirren, a Leigh-on-Sea girl who went to St. Bernard's high school in my constituency, will get an award. I was delighted to give Dame Anita Roddick an Oscar because she has been brave in putting her head above the parapet; I understand what my hon. Friend was getting at when he mentioned the subject. She spoke to us in a direct fashion, and although she was not overtly critical of the Government, I pass on to the Minister the fact that the grant of £70,000 to the Hepatitis C Trust is not overly generous. These days, we all have so little time to listen to each other, but the Hepatitis C Trust does listen to people. It tries to reassure them and deal with their anxieties, so when budgets are being considered, it would be nice if the trust were given more money.
	The other concern that I wanted to raise was about the advertising campaign. I know that the Minister and my hon. Friend the Member for Westbury locked horns on the issue, and I will not get too involved in that, but I point out that the Hepatitis C Trust is concerned about the groups targeted. Let us consider all the dangers that we face today, what with the number of people getting tattoos. Groups felt concern about the way in which the advertising campaign was run. Dare I suggest that the Government would do well to turn to Saatchi & Saatchi, and other advertising agencies?
	I was going to say that I will end with sex, but instead I shall say that I will end with a point about sexual health. The Minister is probably fed up with my endless questions about abortion, but I will not shut up about the matter. Only this week, a little baby whom one could hold in the palm of one's hand—she weighed 10 oz, and measured 9 in—survived when she was born at under 23 weeks, so the issue is not going to go away. Before the general election, the three party leaders were firm in their belief that something had to be done because of advances in medical science, but nothing has happened. Every year in Britain, 300 babies are born aged between 22 and 23 weeks—babies born at 23 weeks have a 17 per cent. chance of survival—so the House must do something about the issue.
	The Health Committee produced a report on the sexual health of the nation. The facilities we saw were pretty awful, and are not at all good compared with those overseas. Will the Minister say something about Chlamydia? The annual screening target is 945,000 16 to 24-year-olds, but so far we have screened 63,000 people, which is 6.7 per cent. of the target. As a result of that failure, many 16 to 24-year-olds will suffer and become infertile.
	I am delighted that we have had this debate. If we are honest—and we are probably not entirely honest with one other in the Chamber at the moment—we know what the problems are, but it is the solutions that are the challenge. Until the British people are given the opportunity to decide at an election whether or not the Government are, as I mentioned earlier, suffering from delusions, we must work with the Labour Government, so I urge the Minister to see whether she can come up with some solutions.

Howard Stoate: I am grateful for the opportunity to speak. I will keep my comments brief, as I know other colleagues wish to contribute.
	I am grateful to the hon. Member for Southend, West (Mr. Amess) for saying that there will be an opportunity for the country to decide at the next election what kind of Government they want. I have waited all afternoon to hear what the Conservative policy is on public health. I intervened on the hon. Member for Westbury (Dr. Murrison) to ask what it is, and he wants to introduce screening for double aneurisms. I entirely agree, and I hope that he is successful in persuading the Minister to introduce that screening. He wants ring fencing, too, for the public health budget, but, as I tried to explain in another intervention, that is almost impossible, as public health is the responsibility of all Government Departments. It would therefore be difficult to ring-fence that budget. Personally, I would very much like a Cabinet-level public health Minister who could range across all Departments.

Howard Stoate: It is interesting that it should be me who draws out Tory policy, because Opposition Members did not mention it in their speeches.  [ Interruption. ] Perhaps I did not hear the hon. Member for Westbury say so.
	The hon. Member for Westbury said that it was a pity that the Black report did not receive wider coverage. As I recall, it was suppressed by Baroness Thatcher because it was far too inflammatory, and it was almost impossible to obtain a copy. It was not until Peter Townsend published it in a Penguin book that the public were allowed to see it, and it was hardly looked at by the Conservative Government.

Bob Blizzard: I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on his achievement. It is nice to know that we agree on that anyway.
	I wonder what the reaction of other people has been to the hon. Gentleman's weight loss. People did not come up to me and say, "Well done. Great." They gave me a funny look and said, "Are you all right?" They thought I was ill with a wasting disease or something. Everyone wants to lose weight, but when somebody does, people think that the person is ill. It is strange. I have shown that I was not ill, and I am not ill now. I am so much more active, and I hope that the hon. Gentleman feels the same. I am fitter, and I do not have the tiredness and aches and pains that I used to have. I have been able to pursue my hobby of walking up mountains and managed to reach the highest peak in north Africa. In the summer, I finally achieved my goal of getting to a 20,000 ft peak in the Andes. I put the picture of myself standing on Mount Toubkal on my last election address to show my electorate that I was fit and not dying.
	People talk about exercise, but I just walk. I always walk up escalators. If we want to see the problem in the country, we need only look at the people who stand on escalators when they could walk up them, or who use lifts instead of stairs. Exercise is good, but I am told that to burn off a cheeseburger, fries and a shake one must walk nine miles. I was lucky: I had someone who helped me to focus on my aim to lose weight; not everyone is that lucky.
	Today, I want to focus on the food that we eat. We need to change the food that we eat and the amount that we eat. The food industry and retailers have a huge role to play. They are not doing enough, and I question the commitment of some of them to helping us solve the obesity problem. Why do I say that? Every year, for many years, I have gone along to Tesco's computers for schools presentations. Last year, it occurred to me that collecting computers for schools tokens was an incentive to buy more food, so I suggested to Tesco that perhaps it should build in an additional incentive by giving extra vouchers if people bought fruit and vegetables. I also put the idea to the Minister of State, Department of Health, my hon. Friend the Member for Don Valley (Caroline Flint) in a parliamentary question.
	There was a little publicity, and Tesco's initial response was that it did not believe in straitjacketing its customers, which was not very helpful. When I eventually received Sir Terry Leahy's response in a letter, it was full of what I call healthy food-speak waffle; it did not say anything at all. Tesco refused to take up that sensible and reasonable idea. In the meantime, I received a letter from Sainsbury's saying that it operated precisely such a scheme for its sports equipment vouchers. I therefore congratulate Sainsbury's, and say, "Shame on Tesco" in that respect.
	I began to suspect whether some companies were serious about tackling obesity. My suspicions have increased since the recent debacle over food labelling. It is important to be able to see the label on food. I used to look at the percentage of fat per 100 g. That helped me, but the information is not prominent; it is in small print and not easy to follow. I was delighted when the Food Standards Agency brought out the traffic light system. It sends a simple, clear and strong message because it gives fat, sugar and salt the red light, and we need to do that if we are to change what we eat, which we must do. One can go into small convenience stores on the way home in the evening and find that all they have are things such as crisps and Munchies. There is no fresh food. The people in them say, "That's what our customers want", but customers will react to the red traffic lights and want different things.
	On the same day as the traffic light system was launched, the Food and Drink Federation launched its guideline daily amounts. It is a recipe for confusion. Sadly, I think that it was deliberately planned by certain food companies and food retailers as an attempt to undermine the Food Standards Agency scheme. The GDA boxes require quite a high level of intelligence to understand. Having been a teacher, I have a good idea of what can generally be understood and it takes very good mental arithmetic to keep a tally of all the percentages of fat, salt and sugar. It probably needs a calculator and one would have to write it down in a book. That will not achieve anything. In addition, there are different guideline daily amounts for men and women and different types of people.
	When people from the Food and Drink Federation came to the House, they made a slick and hard-selling presentation. They held up a bottle of ketchup and said that the problem with the red traffic light system is that it is all based on percentage per 100 g, but people never put 100 g of ketchup on their food, so it is rubbish. But people do eventually eat 100 g of ketchup; it does not matter whether they put it on all at once or over a week. That is where the federation is wrong. It brought its range of produce along with it. We need to change that produce. If people see red traffic lights and change what they ask for, customers will give food manufacturers a different message and we will end up with better food in our shops.

Charles Walker: Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for calling me to wrap up the Back-Bench contributions in this extremely good debate. I have very much enjoyed sitting through it.
	The press lobby called me amiable and chubby. I cannot do much about being amiable, but I decided to do something about being chubby. I went on a diet and now hope that I can keep the weight off. However, I shall not bore the House with my eating habits. I want to stay within the boundaries of a public health debate. If I do not, Madam Deputy Speaker, I am sure that you will rule me out of order. I want to link my comments to the cuts in the Hertfordshire health economy. The £50 million savings that we are being asked to make over the next two years will have a fundamental impact on public health provision across the county and in my constituency.
	We cannot fail to mention per head funding for health. In Hertfordshire it is £900 per head; in the constituency of the Secretary of State for Health it is £1,300 per head, and in parts of Scotland it can be as high as £1,800 per head. There may be very good reasons for those discrepancies, and this is not the place to argue the pros and cons. However, at a time when our acute services and public health services are being cut, the discrepancies are causing my constituents and the residents of Hertfordshire a great deal of concern.

Hospitals (West Kent)

John Stanley: During the summer recess Adjournment debate that was held on 25 July last year, I raised the key issue for virtually all my constituents of the dire consequences of the Secretary of State for Health's policies for both the acute hospital trust in my constituency, the Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS Trust, and my constituency's two community hospitals at Tonbridge and Edenbridge. I make no apology for returning to the same subject just six months later.
	I want to raise two key issues about the acute hospital trust. The Department of Health's treatment of the trust's £16.9 million-worth of so-called accumulated debt is frankly indefensible. The trust has already paid off the debt once, yet the Department is insisting that it is paid off a second time by means of the creation of a surplus, which, in my book, means making a profit out of the needs of patients. The situation is simply unacceptable.
	I appreciate that the process is being carried out under the resource accounting and budgeting Government accounting system. However, as the Minister of State, Department of Health, the hon. Member for Don Valley (Caroline Flint), and her Secretary of State know, the Audit Commission has made a categorical recommendation about applying RAB to NHS trusts. The recommendation, as it was stated by the then Health Minister, Lord Warner, in his letter to me dated 26 July, said that the Department
	"should moderate the future application of the RAB regime, in particular by no longer applying the RAB carry-forward rules to NHS Trusts".
	That is a quite categorical, unqualified recommendation.
	Last year, my three colleagues from west Kent—my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidstone and The Weald (Miss Widdecombe) and my hon. Friends the Members for Sevenoaks (Mr. Fallon) and for Tunbridge Wells (Greg Clark), both of whom are in the Chamber—and I wrote twice to urge the Secretary of State for Health to accept the Audit Commission's recommendations. So far, she has stubbornly refused to do so, so we wrote a third time on 31 January. We are earnestly hoping that our persistence will be rewarded. If it is not, and if the trust is forced once again to find £16.9 million, there can be only one absolutely certain consequence: a diminution in patient services and a loss of jobs for health service workers. It is wholly unreasonable that that should be the consequence of frankly ridiculous accounting rules.
	The second issue relating to the acute hospital trust is the future of the proposed private finance initiative hospital at Pembury. The hospital, on a PFI basis, was conceived and taken forward substantially by the previous Conservative Government. The present Government have been in office for 10 years, but during that period, there has been a huge amount of delay on the hospital. Indeed, I have to say to the Minister that some of my constituents are even doubting that the Government are committed to the hospital and think that they may at the last moment rat on constructing the hospital at all.
	It was for that reason that I recently tabled a question in very clear terms to the Secretary of State. I asked her:
	"whether there is a firm Government commitment to have a new private finance initiative-funded hospital at Pembury; and if she will make a statement."
	The reply that I received from the Minister of State, Department of Health, the hon. Member for Leigh (Andy Burnham), on 5 February read:
	"The Department has reviewed the proposed private finance initiative scheme for Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells National Health Service Trust on value for money and affordability grounds. An announcement is expected shortly."—[ Official Report, 5 February 2007; Vol. 456, c. 724W.]
	That was the end of the answer. There was no commitment and no timetable, so we are left up in the air.
	I must say to the hon. Lady that this is having an extremely debilitating impact on the whole of the NHS in our area, particularly in the Maidstone hospital, where there is great uncertainty about the future of services such as accident and emergency. It really is high time that the Government made it clear that they are—hopefully—firmly committed to allowing the new Pembury hospital to go ahead.

Greg Clark: My right hon. Friend has made a powerful speech. In extending his invitation to the Minister to visit those cottage hospitals, will he ask her to visit Pembury hospital so that she can see for herself the wooden huts in which patients are treated and in which staff have to work? Will he invite her, too, to visit the Kent and Sussex hospital, where it is almost impossible to achieve the highest standards of infection control, because the building is out of date and needs to be replaced with a modern hospital at Pembury? Hopefully, the Minister will impress on her right hon. Friend the Secretary of State the need to make an immediate decision.

Caroline Flint: I congratulate the right hon. Member for Tonbridge and Malling (Sir John Stanley) on securing this debate on hospitals in west Kent. He is joined by his hon. Friends the Members for Sevenoaks (Mr. Fallon) and for Tunbridge Wells (Greg Clark), and I wish to welcome, too, my hon. Friend the Member for Chatham and Aylesford (Jonathan Shaw).
	I wish to take the opportunity to congratulate NHS staff in Kent on the hard work that they have put into improving services and performance, as it is right to do so. Millions of people receive high-quality and safe services every day in Kent, as in other parts of England. The best of the NHS is among the best health care in the world, and we should all be proud of its achievements. We are halfway through the 10-year NHS plan and the achievements are tremendous. Waiting times for in-patient treatment has fallen to 26 weeks, compared with 18 months or more in 1997; the maximum waiting time for an out-patient appointment with a consultant has been halved to only 13 weeks; and 98.5 per cent. of patients are seen, diagnosed and treated within four hours of arriving at an accident and emergency department. Those of us with longer memories can see the difference, but others may not recognise the advances that have been made in our national health service.
	The right hon. Gentleman's local NHS organisations, West Kent primary care trust and Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS Trust, helped to meet those targets, but the quality of service delivered by the NHS does not just mean meeting targets; it also means thinking about the future, and about how we can provide services in the right locations, in buildings fit for the 21st century. We have embarked on a major hospital rebuilding programme over the past 10 years, because development was abandoned under previous Administrations. I believe that it is the largest hospital building programme that there has ever been. In 1997 at least 50 per cent. of NHS buildings predated the formation of the national health service, and dealing with that takes time, money and commitment.
	The White Paper "Our health, our care, our say" committed the NHS to shifting more care into community settings because that is what people said they wanted. In June 2006, we announced that up to £750 million would be available over the next five years to develop a range of different models. In some cases, that could mean new community hospitals; in others, it could mean refurbishment, enhancement of services or community-based services, delivered in a person's home or through a general practice. The aim was to recognise the important elements of delivering a health service that would meet the needs of our communities.
	West Kent PCT has been reviewing its community hospitals, as the right hon. Gentleman and his colleagues know only too well. It intends to deliver not just a cost-effective but a more diverse range of services. I appreciate the right hon. Gentleman's concern about the reduction in bed numbers at community hospitals, but the PCT is focusing on how it can treat more patients in community hospitals—for example, day-case surgery patients—while reducing the number of in-patients who are admitted.
	For some people the provision of services enabling them to be looked after at home, or simply to be at home, is an important part of what they want from the NHS; others may need to recuperate in a community hospital after being in an acute hospital. Many more people can now be treated in their homes for long-term conditions such as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, heart disease and diabetes by, for instance, community matrons. I shadowed two community matrons in my constituency last year, and observed the impact of the service both in preventing too many admissions through accident and emergency units and in ensuring that those who were admitted could subsequently be cared for at home, perhaps by district nurses or with the support of social services departments.
	The Livingstone hospital rehabilitation unit in Dartford has only 38 beds serving a population of about 250,000, but problems involving delayed transfers of care are minimal. West Kent PCT remains committed to community-based services, and aims to use the commended model at Livingstone hospital as a basis for the most effective, efficient and patient-focused delivery of services.
	I understand that the reduction in services at Sevenoaks, Edenbridge, Tonbridge and Hawkhurst hospitals was decided in consultation with the permanent nursing staff. The number of beds was reduced in a phased approach, as patients were discharged from the community hospitals. No patients in need of care at any of the community hospitals were moved to another hospital as a result of the reduction.
	The right hon. Gentleman raised the case of someone being kept in an acute hospital and not being able either to move to a community hospital or to receive support at home. I noted what he said, and will pass it on.

Caroline Flint: I understand that the proposal had to be resubmitted to be checked and re-evaluated. I cannot define precisely what "shortly" means, but the hon. Gentleman should accept that we are trying to expedite the matter, because we recognise the concerns locally.
	The NHS as a whole is in receipt of record resources because of our policy of funding the NHS. In the earlier debate I was accused of being too political, but the fact is that the Conservatives—possibly not one of the newer Members present—voted against the Government's increase in funding for the NHS. Nationally, the latest round of allocations covering the period 2006-07 to 2007-08 represents an investment of £135 billion in the NHS, with £64 billion allocated to primary care trusts in 2006-07 and £70 billion in 2007-08.
	The current financial situation at Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS Trust cannot be attributed to lack of funding. In fact, West Kent primary care trust received an allocation of £740.5 million for this financial year. However, I note the concerns that have been expressed today and in correspondence from the right hon. Gentleman regarding debts accumulated by the trust under the resource accounting and budgeting system known as RAB.
	In the NHS operating framework for 2007-08, the Department set out the initial response to the Audit Commission's review of the NHS financial management and accounting regime. The issues are being reviewed and a decision will be announced once our considerations are complete. So we are actively looking into the matter and recognise some of the problems that have arisen from the RAB system. However, until the review is completed, all NHS organisations must comply with all current statutory and financial duties, and ensure that they achieve financial balance.
	Maidstone hospital was mentioned in the debate. I understand that concern has been expressed locally that the recent consultation on orthopaedic and surgical services at the planned PFI hospital at Pembury represents a lack of commitment to Maidstone hospital. The bulk of improvements made by the trust in recent years have taken place at Maidstone, with £70 million spent since 2003 on improvements. The trust wants to ensure that Maidstone hospital is capable of meeting the state of the art services that the new Pembury hospital will provide.
	New facilities at Maidstone hospital include a new day surgery, an endoscopy unit, a new digital radiology unit and a new breast screening and outpatient department—another example of innovation and new and better services being provided for local communities. The additional investment and development of services has been supported by the creation of 29 new consultant posts at Maidstone hospital since 2000. That accounts for 76 per cent. of the total new consultant posts created at the trust in the past six years. I hope that that indicates that there is no attempt to run down services at Maidstone hospital, and that they are being built up.
	As the right hon. Gentleman is aware, NHS South East Coast is reviewing how its services are delivered across the region. The "creating an NHS fit for the future" review aims to ensure that modern health care services that are of high quality and safe, as well as being clinically and financially sustainable, are delivered to patients. In west Kent, the review led by the local PCT and the NHS is engaging in an extensive programme of discussion with stakeholders, clinicians and the public. The current review of community hospitals, the recent consultation on surgical and orthopaedic services at Maidstone hospital—
	 The motion having been made at Six o'clock, and the debate having continued for half an hour, Mr. Deputy Speaker  adjourned the House without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.
	 Adjourned at half-past Six o'clock.

CORRECTION

Official Report, 21 February 2007: In col. 244, the first sentence of Mr. Paul Flynn's supplementary question following Question 3 should read as follows:

Paul Flynn: That is a highly satisfactory situation, but is it not disturbing that the figures for Scotland are superior in every way to those for Wales and England?